No one's isolated in a shared experience

What is it now week four, week six of the “lockdown”, “social distancing”, “sheltering in place”,“self isolation” strangeness of what we are all going through? All new phrases that had never passed our lips or entered our minds and now seem to never leave our thoughts. Together with my psychologist colleagues we have shared the emotions of our clients as we navigate this coronavirus landscape with all the health and financial challenges that this entails. 

Certainly anxiety and depression symptoms have increased for many clients, however I have noticed that for some of my ongoing clients, their symptoms seem to have eased. I must admit I initially found this a very curious thing to hear. Indeed they have been able to provide empathy and understanding to friends and family who may be struggling with their own new feelings of depression or anxiety. 

All the coping and self management strategies my clients have learned in therapy, they have now been using in helping those close to them. I have also noticed another significant reason for this paradoxical easing of symptoms. They no longer feel alone. I find this the most poignant, touching and indeed most important insight that I have learned from them. Whilst the whole world seems to be learning to adjust to loneliness, isolation and uncertainty, my clients who have been working through their own anxiety and depression prior to all of this, have often felt loneliness, isolation and uncertainty as part of their experience. 

In fact one of the realities of mental health is that one can feel so alone in our painful experience. It can seem that the whole world other than us is Facebook happy and Instagram successful. This works to magnify our feeling of aloneness and self judgment. This is why counselling and therapy is so important. To reach out and feel connected and understood is a huge part of healing. With a whole world that now seems to be feeling disconnected, isolated, depressed and anxious, all that self judgement has dropped away. We are all in the same boat. With their own experience of depression and anxiety these clients who are feeling this easing of their symptoms no longer feel alone. They in fact feel validated, perhaps for the very first time in the wider world, that it’s OK to have these difficult feelings and that these are a shared experience. Ironically in a self isolating world we no longer have to feel isolated. 

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Michael Edwardson, is the Principal Psychologist at Port Phillip Psychology, St.Kilda. He has over 24 years experience working with adults and couples across a broad range of issues. He’s a passionate footy fan and red wine connoisseur.